


Today is the day

by desperateforagoodread



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hogwart's day to day life, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Hogwarts Houses, Homesickness, House Elves, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff Common Room, Hufflepuff Neville Longbottom, I feel like hufflepuff don't get enough appreciation, Male-Female Friendship, Muggle Culture, Muggle-born, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Teenagers, The Marauder's Map, fits in with cannon, hopefully realistic, i've got plans, interhouse bonding, maybe romance at some point, maybe teen romance at some point, no house stereotypes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29117709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperateforagoodread/pseuds/desperateforagoodread
Summary: Tilda's a muggleborn hufflepuff student, suffering from homesickness. Will her close friend, James Sirius help the ache of homesickness go away? Or will a love interest come along and help?





	Today is the day

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, I hope you like this. I haven't even checked over it and really just wrote this for my own enjoyment but I thought that maybe someone else would enjoy it too, so here you are!

The winter was cold this year, much colder than the previous years she had spent at Hogwarts. But she was still happy, curled up by the fire after everyone else had gone to sleep, a book cradled in her lap. The amber glow of the flames created an amber hue to her long hair, which tumbled in messy waves down her back, and lit the pages of the book with dancing shadows, meaning she had to angle the book towards the light to read the sentences at the bottom of the page.

The Hufflepuff common room had been emptied much earlier in the day (it was a Tuesday night after all), the other fifth years wishing her goodnight after she promised to be up in a few more minutes. Even though it was bright and airy during the day, the room had a slight eeriness after the candles had been dimmed and the hanging plants casted twisted shadows against the wooden floorboards. The small circular windows didn’t allow much moonlight into the room, but somehow completely transformed the common room during the day, filling the room with warm gold light.

“Hey, you okay?”

The girl hadn’t noticed the boy creep down the stairs and walk behind the mustard sofa. Quickly, closing her book, she turned her back to the fire, addressing him from her spot on the floor. “Yeah, I’m fine, thank you”, keeping her tone kind and friendly.

“It’s like half two in the morning. What you doing up?” The boy asked, his brown eyes reflecting orange streaks from the fire.

She recognised him as one of the prefects, only a year above her. He was one of those people who enjoyed the position of authority a bit too much, often telling people to do things just for the sake of it. What was _he_ doing up?

Matilda swallowed, thinking before speaking, “I must have lost track of time” She smiled, hoping it didn’t seem half-hearted and fake. “I just really need to know how this ends” she added, indicating to the book.

His eyes hovered over the clearly worn cover of the book, it obviously wasn’t the first time she had read it. The cover was made from a red cotton fabric, obviously carefully made and beautiful when it was in it’s prime and had gold linings to the edges of each of the pages. However, some of the gold had been worn away and the fabric of the cover had been scarred and torn with use.

“Hmm,” he hummed in acceptance. “Well, I think you should get going to sleep now”.

“Yeah, probably” she muttered back, not wanting to be stuck in her room without the light of the fire.

She started up off the floor, picking up the woollen blanket she had tucked around her and dragging it behind her as she walked slowly up the stairs towards the dormitories. She could feel the glare of his eyes piercing her back as she walked towards her room.

The quiet snores of the other sleeping girls filled the room as she made her way into her bed, letting the coldness of the sheets engulf her as her head hit the pillow. She knew she would sleep like most other night, with lots of nightmares and tosses and turns, but still let her eyelids drop heavily.

\----

Tilda couldn’t remember why she woke up with the tears streaking down her face, all she knew is that all she wanted was to be hugged by her mum and feel the warmth in her arms. She wasn’t unhappy at Hogwarts, no, she loved it there. She just missed home more. Sniffling a bit, she wiped her face, aggressively, and looked up into the room, the light of the sun glowing through the arched windows, which decorated the perimeter of two sides of the walls. Theses windows were high up as most of the room was underground or halfway into the mountains.

A pixie-like brunette skipped over to Tilda, tilting her head so it lined up with the girl still wrapped up in her duvet.

“Wake up, sleepy head.”

“Shut up, Alila” Matilda groaned rolling away from her.

Alila was unfazed, instead moving to the chest of draws, which was drooling clothes, and dropped books into her bookbag, next to her unmade bed. “And a good morning to you too. You’re gonna miss breakfast at this rate.”

Slowly, Matilda started to stretch, sitting up and letting her mucky-gold hair sprawl out behind her. “What time is it?”

“Time to get up” Alila retorted, throwing a pile of school clothes at her friend. “We’ve got potions first. The new Professor this time.”

“Have the others gone already?” Matilda asked as she started to wiggle into her skirt under the covers.

The half-blood whipped round her head, her shoulder length hair swinging against her collar, and replied, “Yep, a while ago and if you don’t mind, I’m going to try join them.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go” Tilda answered happily, nodding encouragingly.

Tilda quickly pulled on the rest of her uniform, messily throwing her robes on top of them. The mirror revealed her tangled waves, which she hastily raked a hairbrush through until it looked like less of a mess, but still not great. Before rushing out the room, she made both their beds and chucked her books, including her book from last night, into her satchel and rushed out the room and down the staircase into the slightly crowded common room. She didn’t stop though, instead running through the entrance way and down the corridor, the opposite way to the staircase leading out.

Stopping by the portrait of a bowl of fruit, she looked around her to check if everyone had gone. She tickled the pear in the fruit bowl, like she had many times before, and waited for it to finish giggling and turn into a large green door handle. She twisted the handle and walked into the toasty kitchens.

Hundreds of little elves came bounding towards her, as she greeted each of them by name, “Folwin, how are you?” She nodded down to a slightly taller elf, who had a large streak of chocolate down his loose shirt.

“Good, very good, Miss Tilda, miss” He said stumbling over his words.

“I’m very glad,” she replied smiling down at the sweet creature before turning to another behind her, “Milpy, how is your arm?”

The last time Matilda had visited she had noticed a bad oil burn on the smallest elf’s arm, the burns making her skin red and splotchy. The elf had insisted she was okay and that she didn’t want to bother anyone into helping her, but Tilda spent all night researching how to heal a burnt arm and used a mixture of healing water and an enchantment to heal Milpy the next day.

“Much better, Miss, thank you” She squeaked shyly.

Another, more confident, elf intervened their conversation, “So Miss Matilda, what can we do for you?”

Tilda smiled, “I was hoping that maybe you had an apple or something, which I could take to lesson, if it’s not too much hassle”. But already four or five different elves had rushed to get some fruit for the student, one even trying to coax her into taking a pumpkin pastry.

“You spoil me, Wakber! But I’d rather just take the apple, I’m already running late” Tilda said, taking the shiny green apple from one of the elves, thanking her, before waving goodbye, rushing out the door and down the stairs to the dungeon, where the potions classroom was.

\----

“And who are you?” A disgruntled woman, with a twitchy nose asked as Matilda arrived late to class. The woman was wearing some dark purple robes and a glimmering gold broach on her chest.

Tilda looked down at the stone floor, trying as quickly as possible to chew the apple in her mouth, “Matilda, Miss.” She answered, politely.

“You are nearly five minutes late.” The woman bellowed, pointing her wand towards a gold clock on the far side of the classroom, over the heads of all Tilda’s fellow students, who watched the interaction with wide, wondering eyes. “Don’t let this happen again!”

“Of course not, Miss” She said as she made her way to the empty seat, next to James. Yes, James Sirius. The son of the ‘Boy who Lived’. Despite being a muggleborn, Matilda had grown up with the tales of Harry Potter, the tales being told dramatically in the non-wizarding world.

“So, the Hufflepuff is arriving late to lesson” James muttered under his breath towards Matilda, “That’s very unlike her.” He remarked, whilst the new Professor started her lesson.

“Shut up” Tilda muttered back, as she quickly unpacked her books onto her desk.

“She seemed to be in a bad mood, perhaps she had just woken up?” He continued, using his hand to prop his head up as he looked towards the frustrated Hufflepuff girl.

“She couldn’t sleep, so I don’t think it’s her fault” Matilda mumbled back, trying to look engaged in the lesson, with her book open and quill in hand, even though none of what the professor had said had reached her ears.

James leaned forward towards the girl, “Well maybe if she didn’t spend all her time reading in front of the fire, she wouldn’t oversleep”.

Tilda brows drew together in confusion, as she looked towards the boy sat next to her, “How did you know that?”

Instead of answering, the dark-haired boy tapped his nose twice before reaching his hand up to answer the Professors question.

Tilda found him infuriating. How could he be such a know-it-all and at the same time be so cool and collected. It annoyed her. But she would not show it.

She, instead, started to write a title on the top of her page, the quill scratching against the parchment as she wrote. It was times like this when she wished she could just use a biro pen to write notes in lessons. She wanted highlighters and tipex and pencils. To her it just seemed so much easier, but she wasn’t complaining, the wizarding world is great.

The teacher told them to get up and collect a cauldron from the pile in the left corner of the classroom and work in pairs to create ‘Strengthening solution’ and like always, James and Tilda were working together.

Despite their constant bickering, Tilda and James had been friends for a long time, ever since he accidently threw a quaffle at her face when she was walking past the quidditch pitch in second year. Coincidently, that was the last time he tried to play quidditch, instead opting to be the commentator, much to his mother’s disappointment. He had followed her all the way to the hospital wing, trying to apologise but sounding more like insults. Tilda just walked silently, listening to the rambling boy, as the blood gushed from her nose and into her uniform. Their friendship blossomed from there really.

“So, the reading? How did you know?” Tilda asked, preparing the ingredients in lines across their table.

“Hmmm, yeah” James teased, combing a hand through his dark brown hair, “I found something in my dad’s draw.”

“Don’t tell me!” Tilda jumped in, “It’s the Marauder’s map!”

“How did you know?” He asked, sounding annoyed.

Imitating his earlier actions, she said nothing and tapped her nose, knowingly. “We could do all sorts of things with that”

“We?” He joked, “I think you me I will.”

“Yeah, good luck getting away with anything without me”. She laughed, using her elbow to jab him in the ribs.

“Ow” he smirked, rubbing his side, where she had prodded him.

The lesson continued without incident, only with a few reprimands from the new Professor, which Tilda found out to be called Professor Coltentide. The duo left the room, hovering in the corridor to speak.

“What you got?” Tilda asked, dragging him by the arm to the side of the corridor so the stream of students couldn’t wash them away.

“Urm, Arithmancy” James answered, thoughtfully.

“I’ve got Herbology, Longbottom” she announced.

“Meet you at the usual place and time”.

“Sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it hunnies, please leave kudos or even a comment if you’re feeling spicy. I've got some ideas for this but i could always do with more so if you want anything to happen please say.


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